If you’ve been following along with the First-Time Homebuyer Series, you have now heard from a financial advisor and a mortgage specialist. Now, that you have your financing ready, it is time to find a realtor! 1. The first thing I always tell clients whether they are buying their first home or their tenth home, is to always ask a professional. It never hurts to ask around to friends, family members and check reviews online to make sure the person or team you are working with is working in your best interest. A good real estate professional will advise you throughout the process, take a step by step approach, point out the good and the bad and negotiate the best deal for you. Make sure to find a trusted real estate professional with the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman. Some realtors are only looking for a transaction and others are looking to build a relationship. Keep in mind, for you the buyer, the realtor will not cost you anything! The commission for the listing agent and the buyer agent are paid by the seller at closing. 2. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get the home search started. We like to get started by meeting the client and determining what they are looking for in a home. This may include the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, size of home, price range and especially the location. More often than not, we actually start to narrow down what the client is looking for after seeing a few homes. Typically, there are wants and needs, so it really helps to distinguish the difference. If you say “this home is perfect BUT”, then you know the home is not perfect. Make sure you don’t settle on something that you are not going to be happy with because this is a huge purchase/investment. Once we get a better idea, we can start looking. 3. Your realtor most likely set up an automated search using your criteria to find homes that fit what you are looking for. With technology today, you will most likely also look on your own using sites such as Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia or Homes.com. Sometimes, there is a little bit of a delay from when the information hits these sites from the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), so some of the information may be incorrect. In the current real estate environment, the supply of homes is very low and there are a lot of buyers currently looking. With that being said, if the homes are priced correctly they have been selling quickly, so make...